FROM THE CRITIQUER'S PERSPECTIVE

(parts have been paraphrased for length)

copyright 1995 by Rich Hamper. All rights reserved

Critiques are the single best source of feedback that writers can tap to find the flaws in their stories and to improve their writing skills. Critiquing is also an opportunity to enhance your editing skills.

It's natural to want to avoid critiquing too negatively because you're worried about hurting the author's feelings. But it's not the negative critical content of the critique that should concern you; it's the way in which you critique that you need to monitor. Just be kind and helpful and critique in the way you'd like to be critiqued.

Writers, especially if they've been writing for a long time, place a high value on negative input. The author has to find out where her story is flawed so that the story can be fixed. To do this, the author needs to have the flaws pointed out. But don't just tell the author what's wrong; make suggestions about how to fix the problems you see. The author may not agree with all of your criticisms, but the author will always get something out of your critique if you approach the critique constructively.

Even if you don't feel qualified to critique, you are. If you read books and stories, you are qualified. You are an Informed Reader. You are representative of a certain class of reader and as such are qualified to tell the author what you do or don't like about her story. Tell the author where the story meets your 'requirements.' This kind of feedback is also helpful to the author.

One of the best approaches to a critique is the 'sandwich' approach. Start with some positive impressions of the author's work; follow-up with negative criticism; and finish with more positive comments on the author's work. Then, go back and spice the negative 'meat' of the sandwich with positive feedback on anything that struck you as really neat aspects of the author's story or technique.

1. Give your overall impressions of the author's work.
   • In general, did the story or excerpt work for you? What specifically didn't work?
   • Did you enjoy the story? Do you want to read more?
2. Comment on the plot/story line.
   • How does the author's plot strike you? Did you like it? Were you drawn into the story? If not, why not?
   • Did you feel there was some "point" to the story (i.e. did you get the impression that some protagonist tried to accomplish something?)? Or was the writing aimless?
   Was the plot believable? Were you able to suspend disbelief, or did some exasperating detail make you want to toss the story across the room? If so, what was that detail?
3. Comment on characters and characterization.
   • Were you able to easily identify the protagonist?
   • Did any characters stand out as "cardboardy" or flat?
   • Were the characters believable?
   • Did you find yourself caring about what happens to the main or other characters?
4. Comment on Dialogue and dialects.
   • Were you comfortable with the dialogue? What bothered you about it?
   • Was dialect used? Did the dialect work or was it too much?
   • Did the dialogue drag?
   • Did each character have a distinctive voice? Which characters didn't?
   • Does the author use said-bookisms? (said-bookism=substitutes for he said/she said, e.g. he spit out, he shouted, he cried, etc.)
5. Comment on the story setting.
   • Was the length of the descriptive passages too much, too little or just right?
   • Did the author give enough detail, too much detail, or too little detail about places and events?
   • Did the places seem real to you?
6. Comment on the flow and pacing of the story.
• Did the story or novel excerpt have the right tempo for you? Did the story move smoothly? Was the pacing too intense? Too slow?
• Was the paragraphing handled appropriately? Long paragraphs slow the tempo down. Short paragraphs speed it up.
• After reading the beginning of the story or novel excerpt, were you clear on the direction of the story?
  • If you're reviewing a short story, did the author meet your expectations?
  • If you're reviewing a novel excerpt, summarize for the author what you expect the story to deliver in the way of mysteries solved, conflicts resolved, characters changed, etc.. This will let the author know if he or she has set the reader's expectations appropriately.
7. Comment on Point of View (POV) lapses and Author Intrusion.
   • Identify for the author paragraphs where more than one POV is present. If they aren't using a third-person omniscient POV, these paragraphs will need fixing.
   • Identify for the author where he or she jumped from one character's POV to describing what only can be seen from the author's POV (e.g., a description of a character's physical characteristics that the character is not likely to be able to make in the circumstances portrayed).
   • Comment on "Information Dumps."
     • How well does the author handle disseminating information to the reader that's critical to understanding what's happening in the story? Did the author handle this unobtrusively?
     • Are long boring passages of exposition used?
     • Does the imparting of this information disrupt the flow of the story?
8. Comment on accuracy - are the "facts" of the story correct or feasible? Does the science match what you know? Are the duels and fights believable? Is the geography accurate?
9. Comment on consistency - is the author consistent throughout the story in the handling of story details? For example, are the character's eyes the same color in Chapter 1 as they are in Chapter 12? Does a Character have a different number of children in the first scene compared to the middle scene, and there's no accounting for the difference? Is the chronology handled correctly?
10. Comment on wordiness.
    • Look for unneeded words, for instance, "and", "by", fuzzy adverbs, "is", "of", "there", etc. These often flag verboseness.
    • Look for "fluff" phrases like "as a matter of fact", "at this point in time", etc. These can usually be replaces by one or two words.
    • Does the author use too much passive voice?
    • Look for redundancies (e.g. "final completion", "respectful regard", etc.)
    • Look for redundant sentences or phrases (e.g., two sentences or phrases that say the same thing in different words.)
    • Look for unnecessary qualifiers (e.g., "almost", "seem", "sort of", "maybe", etc.).
11. Comment on anything else that specifically detracts from the story being a success; for instance, was there anything you found confusing in the story?
12. Stay away from detailed critiquing of grammar and punctuation unless the author specifically requests such a review. Only comment on recurring errors where you're sure of your ground and it's apparent that the writer has a major problem.
13. Resist the urge to make humorous comments about any facets of what the writer has written. Such comments may seem funny to you, but needlessly sting the author.
14. Do not try to rewrite the author's plot. The plot belongs to them and not to you. Your job is solely to critique how well the author tells his or her story.

From the author's perspective:

It scary to submit your story for critiquing. You feel like your ego is on the line. Maybe you're story will get chewed up badly by a critiquer.

Try to reframe your perception a bit. Critiques will give you badly needed feedback. You need feedback so that you'll find out what the flaws are in your writing before your stories are rejected by an editor for the same flaws. You'll also learn more about writing. Basically, you stand to profit a great deal from the experience.

Forget about your ego. It's only threatened if you let it be. Criticisms of your writing are not criticisms of you as a person. Do you think someone might discover that you're not author caliber? If so, don't worry. There's no chance of this. Anyone can learn to write well. If you have a burning desire, you'll do it. You don't need a master's degree to be a published author. All you need is the stick-to-it-iveness to learn from your mistakes, no matter how many you make.

Since you need to know what's wrong with your story before you can improve it, what kind of feedback do you think will be the most valuable to you? Isn't it the negative feedback you'll get? Negative criticism is essential to your success as a published author. Positive feedback is nice, but ultimately doesn't contribute as much to your success.

If you find yourself reacting defensively to a negative critique, that's natural. Don't get angry. If one critiquer reacts to something in your story and the criticism doesn't immediately ring true for you, don't change anything based on that specific criticism - at least not until you get similar reactions from other critiquers. If you disagree with a suggestion and have a good solid reason, tell the critiquer why you aren't going to change what he or she pointed out. If a critiquer reacts to what you've written in a way that surprises you, tell the critiquer what you had intended and ask the critiquer how you could have avoiding triggering her reaction.

The final decision about what changes in your story is yours alone to make. You have to weigh the criticisms and decide which ones make sense to you and which ones should be ignored. You own your story.

After you've revised your story to reflect those criticisms that made sense to you, feedback to your critiquer. Thank the critiquer and tell her how the critique impacted your work-in-progress. This closes the feedback loop and helps the critiquer learn and gain confidence from the critiquing experience.

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